Declaration of Extra Strike

‘What are you talking about? I don’t have a tattoo?”

That sounds unbelievable. However, when I saw Han Seo-jin’s honest expression, I had no choice but to step back into the bathroom that I just came out of.

I turned around and looked at my back in the mirror.

“Oh……? Oh, Oh?”

None. 

On the wing bone of his back, there was no tattoo. It was big and fancy, yet the fact that it can’t be seen………….

Even if I leaned my neck back as much as I could, or bent my arm back and felt the place where I couldn’t reach well, there was only a smooth back without a tattoo.

-How about five cute puppies?

-Fuck you. Put it in the back if you like it, you fucker. Just get a bastard dog tattoo! I’ll grind my back to the hand plane right away.

-It wouldn’t look good, so let’s go with a natural one. 

-Fuck! I told you not to!! I told you not to!!

“How did this happen?”

Instead of the five silver wolves, who always swayed along with the movements of their muscles, I stared blankly at the clean skin where they had disappeared.  

Han Seo-jin, who was leaning on the bathroom doorway, asked when it came.

“What kind of tattoo?  Did you have a dream?”

“No, This…………….”

I wasn’t surprised that the tattoo simply disappeared. But this…………. This was a much more complicated situation.

It was only then that the changes in my body that I hadn’t thought to look at came into my eyes.  

There were small scratches on the smooth body that I did not know how they came to be. On the other hand, the white stain-like discoloured scar that I accidentally left on the inside of my thigh while making the potion had completely disappeared.

‘Why is my body……………?’

I was dumbfounded and looked over my entire body, but I was startled by a hand grabbing my shoulder.  

When I looked back, my eyes met Han Seo-jin, who had come right behind me.  

Seeing the strange expression on his face and the strange look in his eyes, I was strangely at a loss for words.

“What, what are you doing?”

“Have you ever had a tattoo?  I don’t remember any.”

“I’ll tell you later, later…………”

I had no time to answer Han Seo-jin’s words without knowing what the situation was.  

I twisted his shoulder, telling him to get rid of the hold on my hand, but Han Seo-jin muttered, putting more strength into the hand he was holding.

“This is not a lie then.”

“……”

“You are Joo Ho-hyun, right?”

My heart thumped and fell. I squeezed my trembling fingertips into a fist. My head, which was getting colder by every second, urged me to rush around and overcome this situation.  

Shaking off my grasped hand, I stared straight at Han Seo-jin.

“No?”

“What?”

“If I say no, do you believe me?”

I pushed Han Seo-jin, who had his mouth shut, and walked out of the bathroom. I felt signs of him following me.  

Without turning around, I said as I put on my clothes roughly.

“You don’t even know my name, but if you ask me if I’m Joo Ho-hyun, I’ll say no, you asshole.  This is a very good question for someone who has lost their memory.”

It was only then that the doubts on Han Seo-jin’s face faded after he pretended to not know anything.

I was confused about the situation where I landed in an unknown place and my body became strange, but I tried to speak calmly.

“Speaking of which, I need to see Sang Tae-chang.”

***

There were two ways to view the status window at the center. 

One was to check with the tablet of the team doctor who was allowed access, and the other was to go directly to the medical building for a check-up.  

Han Seo-jin said he would call the team doctor, but I desperately stopped him and insisted on going directly to the medical building.

I was reluctant to reveal my skill window, and I couldn’t believe the process itself of filtering through others, whether it’s a team doctor or anyone.  

I have to check the status window with my own two eyes.

“I can’t remember any of it, so I want to see it myself.”

“…..I see.”

After thinking about what to reply for a while, Han Seo-jin immediately nodded and led me out of the room.

We went through the long hallway again and headed for the front door, but the guy who was lying on the sofa in the living room raised his head and looked at us.

“Where are you going?”

“The medical building.”

“Hey, You were very protective, huh, really protecting him.”

I ignored the mocking words as if it were no big deal and followed Han Seo-jin. I wondered if a deep gaze behind my back was scanning me, who called Joo Ho-hyun in a loud voice.

“Ho-hyun ah! Do you want to go and come to hyung’s room?  Let’s get some guiding after a long time.”

Instead of me, who was still unfamiliar with the name Joo Ho-hyun, it was Han Seo-jin who looked back.

“What are you doing with a kid who doesn’t even know how to guide yet?”

“What are you doing? Isn’t the rule not to touch in guiding?”

“The team leader entrusted the management of Joo Ho-hyun to me. Until he get his memory back.”

Han Seo-jin, who spoke firmly, approached me while I was snooping around the kitchen and grabbed my arm.

“What are you doing? Follow quickly.”

“………….”

Han Seo-jin and I went out the door, leaving behind the flabbiness stare.

A car was waiting at the door of the mansion.  As soon as the driver got into the car after opening the door, Han Seo-jin came in and sat next to him.

The scenery of the center passed through the car window. I clung to the car window, wanting to figure out the escape route in case I might escape.

As I rolled my eyes and surveyed the terrain, I heard Han Seo-jin’s voice behind me.

“Is the outside that fascinating?”

“I’ve never been there, so I’m curious.”

“Never been there before……..”

Seojin Han, who was talking, kept his mouth shut. In the meantime, the car left the mansion and entered the roadside, and the sea began to appear in the distance.

“Sea…..?”

“Where are we even going?”

I didn’t think that I would get the chance to see it again, so I looked at the sea that was reflected in the distance in a daze for a while.

Is it a coastal city? This is Korea, right?

“Where is this place?”

“What do you mean where?”

“I mean the center. What part of Korea is it located in?” 

“Because we’re the Seoul center, it’s in Incheon…….”

“Ah, it’s Incheon? But I thought…”

Seoul center? Han Seo-jin’s words reached my ears as I thought it would be easy to escape at least.

“An island.”

“…..an island?”

“It is an artificial island off the coast of Incheon.  The entire island is the site of the center.”

Damn, an island. If that’s the case, you’re saying that it’s hard to just hang out at night. Unlike other hunters with physical skills, it became more difficult for me to escape.

It’s disappointing. I looked out of the window again and again. Han Seo-jin had nothing to talk about as expected.

Soon after, the car stopped in front of a large building. The place where Han Seo-jin got off looked like the most crowded and noisy building I had ever seen.  

A place like a general hospital that you only saw on TV, with people being carried to bed and ambulances noisily coming in, unfolded before my eyes.

“Oh…….This is a hospital.”

It was the first time I had been to a hospital where ordinary people go. Because I became a potion maker right away, and even if I was sick, Tae Je-heon called a healer, so there was no need to go to the hospital.

Han Seo-jin grabbed my arm and led me to the other side without asking.

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“Hey. Over there, people are heading there?”

“We didn’t come to the hospital. The checkup center is building B, so you have to go to the building in the back.”

Entering the front door and crossing the building, a passageway connected to the building in the back appeared.  

After passing through the aisle, I knew at once that this was Building B. Unlike Building A, which was noisy, Building B was calm and felt like a laboratory.

A guide for each floor was displayed in large letters in the center. The layer that caught my attention was the phrase ‘4F Production World – Potion’.  

My eyes flashed wide.

“Potion?”

‘Are they the producers belonging to the country? Or are they studying there?’

I wondered if there would be any rivals for me, and I wondered what level of skill the potion producers belonged to the country had.  

It was too much of a waste to pass up an opportunity to get a glimpse of the awakening people in the national service.

“What are they possibly doing in there……….”

I muttered and slowly moved my feet, but Han Seo-jin’s answer was extremely cold.

“Don’t pay attention to useless things and come quickly. Didn’t you want to see the status window?”

“Y-yeah.”

Even though I was caught and dragged away by Han Seo-jin, my eyes couldn’t help but stay fixed on the sign of ‘4F Production World – Potion’.

Building B, which I originally thought was quiet, was already quite crowded with other guides and Espers who had come to see various tasks.  

Han Seo-jin sat me down on a chair and threatened me several times to sit still and wait as if he was treating a child who didn’t listen.

“Don’t think about going anywhere else, and just wait here.”

“I said I get it. Do you think I would escape when there’s no one I know except you? Hurry up and go check it out.”

“…. I’ll come back right away.”

When I waved my hand, saying, “Go away,” Han Seo-jin turned his back with a displeased expression.  

When Han Seo-jin disappeared, I began to feel the stinging gazes that had never existed before. Together with a name I have started to become familiar.

“Isn’t that guy Joo Ho-hyun? The one who….?”

“Who?”

“You don’t know? Because of that guy, Ryu Su-yoon…”

Even though the sound had nothing to do with me, I felt itchy in my ears for no reason, so I rubbed my earlobes. 

I raised my eyebrows and turned around at the side where the voices came from. The mouths of those who were talking were closed tightly, as they secretly avoided my eyes.

‘Treating me like someone else.’

Being Joo Ho-hyun was funny. Wherever he goes, he is not welcome. I couldn’t even fathom how he had ever lived. 

As I clicked my tongue, a TV screen caught my eye through the glass wall on the side where they were.  

It was the headline that was seen through the door, to be precise.

「The Grand Finale of the Nox Guild Private Funeral. Who is the dead person? Still Unidentified.」 

“What? Nox?”

As soon as I saw the word Nox, I jumped up and ran to the glass wall without thinking about anything else. Subtitles moved quickly in the vivid screen.

Reporters struggled to enter the main gate among hundreds of mourners dressed in black.  All the faces of the executives that were occasionally reflected were familiar.

To the extent of revealing that much and holding a funeral, they must not be a member of a single guild, but more than an executive level.

‘Who else died besides me? Who is it? It must be someone I know…………’

In the meantime, a confrontation between the guild members who tried to stop them and the reporters who tried to break through them and enter the funeral hall continued.

[Whose funeral is this?! Please tell me why you are doing it privately!!]

[Please don’t do this. Go back!]

[Where is the current guild leader, Tae Jeheon??!]

[The supply of the highest grade potion sold in Nox has been cut off. Is it true that the potion master Kang Eui-jin is dead?]

[If it is the death of the only potion master in the world, even the people have the right to know!]

[Back off! If you go beyond this, we cannot guarantee your safety!]

“…. I’m dead?’

I stared blankly at the screen through the glass wall at the familiar name.